Gudrun

Gudrun, heroine of several Old Norse legends whose principal theme is revenge. She is the sister of Gunnar and wife of Sigurd (Siegfried) and, after Sigurd’s death, of Atli. Her sufferings as a wife, sister, and mother are the unifying elements of several poems. The counterpart of Kriemhild in the Nibelungenlied, she sometimes is erroneously confused with the heroine of the Middle High German romance Gudrun Lied, an independent Baltic-coast legend of an abduction that ends happily with a rescue and the lovers’ reunion. See alsoAtli, Lay of; Kriemhild.

Gudrun.

Edda Sämund den vises by Fredrik Sander

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heroic poem in the Norse Poetic Edda (see Edda), an older variant of the tale of slaughter and revenge that is the subject of the German epic Nibelungenlied, from which it differs in several respects. In the Norse poem, Atli (the Hunnish king Attila) is the villain, who is slain by his wife,...

in Germanic heroic legend, sister of the Burgundian kings Gunther, Gernot, and Giselher. In Norse legend she is called Gudrun, and the lays in which she appears are variant tales of revenge. In the Nibelungenlied, she is the central character, introduced as a gentle princess courted by Siegfried....

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In Norse mythology, Gudrun was the wife of the great hero Sigurd. After Sigurd’s death, she became the wife of Atli, king of the Huns, and later, of Jonakr of Denmark. Gudrun was the sister of King Gunnar and the warrior Hogni, and daughter of King Giuki and the sorceress Queen Grimhild. She killed king Atli in revenge for the death of her brothers. By Sigurd she had two children, Sigmund and the lovely Swanhild, by Atli she had two sons, and by Jonakr she had three sons, Sorli, Hamdir, and Erp.